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Municipal Fiber Network Will Let Customers Switch ISPs In Seconds (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader shares an Ars Technica report: Most cities and towns that build their own broadband networks do so to solve a single problem: that residents and businesses aren't being adequately served by private cable companies and telcos. But there's more than one way to create a network and offer service, and the city of Ammon, Idaho, is deploying a model that's worth examining. Ammon has built an open access network that lets multiple private ISPs offer service to customers over city-owned fiber. The wholesale model in itself isn't unprecedented, but Ammon has also built a system in which residents will be able to sign up for an ISP -- or switch ISPs if they are dissatisfied -- almost instantly, just by visiting a city-operated website and without changing any equipment. Ammon has completed a pilot project involving 12 homes and is getting ready for construction to another 200 homes. Eventually, the city wants to wire up all of its 4,500 homes and apartment buildings, city Technology Director Bruce Patterson told Ars. Ammon has already deployed fiber to businesses in the city, and it did so without raising everybody's taxes.
This is desperately needed in Canada. We pay the highest internet rates in the world and changing ISP's can be a nightmare.
"We were able to come in, use their fiber where it traditionally would have cost us quite a bit to do our own infrastructure, so time to market was much quicker. It gives us access to the customers that they're already doing business with," Barbara Sessions, director of engineering and operations at Silver Star Communications, said in the ILSR video.
CEO Jared Stowell of Fybercom, another ISP using Ammon's network, doesn't mind the competition enabled by the open access model. "We like the competition," he said. "It keeps us on top of the game so we can continue to provide a superior product and no one gets lackadaisical."
and:
There are six ISPs offering service to businesses over the open access network
ISPs don't like municipalities competing for customers, but in a situation where the municipality is bringing the customer to the ISP, many are apparently on board.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
That's correct. This is just last-mile infrastructure, like back in the day when you had to dial into the ISP over telephone wires not owned by the ISP. In both cases, the ISP still has to physically connect to the upstream provider miles away (this isn't cheap), configure and maintain the routing protocol (this requires technical knowledge and coordination with the upstream provider who isn't interested in talking to the end user), and pay by the gigabyte for data.
Services like e-mail and personal web space are just extras that an ISP might provide if they feel like it.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
An internet connection consists of the following:
1) The router in your home
2) The physical wire to the ISP
3) The router/hub/switch at the other end.
4) The connections, peering agreements, bandwidth purchases, etc.. the ISP has to the outside world.
5) The person you call when you have a problem.
Honestly, most of the problems I have ever had with my internet is either with #4 or #5, so this seems like a step in the right direction.
When I get ping times of 1000ms, dropped packets, slow download speeds, jitter, blocked ports, etc... it's almost always #4 and I have to call #5 to deal with it.
We have something similar in my town where a local ISP piggybacks their DSL on the local phone carrier's wire. I've heard that their connection is better but unfortunately you have to pay them AND the local phone carrier so your bill is significantly higher.
Running Cat-5e or Cat-6 to each individual unit is no problem, it's the standard approach for MDUs etc here in Sweden, with one or more RJ-45's inside each unit.